Anne Woodard - Dead Aim

They were almost to the door when Maggie stopped in her tracks.

Rick placed his hand at the small of her back in an instinctive, almost protective gesture. He could feel the tension in her body even through the thickness of her jacket.

Standing just inside the entrance, watching them, was Fenton chief of police, David Bursey.

Maggie moved forward, deliberately casual. “Chief Bursey.”

Bursey touched the brim of his Stetson politely. “Ms. Mann.”

“Your hat’s still on. Are you coming in or going out?”

“Guess that depends.”

Maggie ignored that barb. “I don’t recall seeing you here before.”

His gaze flicked from Maggie to Rick and back again. “Rumor has it you’re here quite a bit.”

Maggie’s chin came up. “That’s right. Even a coffeehouse waitress likes a little action now and then. Anything wrong with that?”

“Not usually, no.”

Bursey’s tone was casual, bland, even, yet Rick heard the warning beneath the surface. But what was Bursey warning them against?

He shifted to let a patron get past him. The rush of air from the open door was cold and clean, welcome after the stale air of the bar. He caught a glimpse of a man in the doorway, head lowered, his shoulder raised as he awkwardly shrugged into his coat. Then the man was gone and the outer door swung shut.

Beside him, Maggie settled her own jacket more comfortably on her shoulders. “See you around, Dave.”

It was a challenge, not a question.

The police chief nodded. “Sure, Maggie. You know what I think of you and the Cuppa Joe’s.”

“Yeah,” said Maggie coolly. “I know.”

“And you, Dr. Dornier,” the chief added, shifting his attention to Rick. Beneath the broad brim of the Stetson, the man’s eyes narrowed. “You hear anything about your sister, you let us know.”

Rick held that hard gaze for a minute, fighting down anger. What in hell was all this about? More important, what did it have to do with Tina?

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll do that.” He turned to Maggie. “Ready?”

She was out the door before he could open it for her, her car keys in her hand. Swearing, Rick pulled on his own coat and started after her.

From the far side of the lot came the sound of an engine starting. It wasn’t enough to drown the voice from the doorway behind him.

“Mr. Dornier? Rick? Rick! Wait up!”

It was the waitress, Karin. She hadn’t even bothered to grab a coat before rushing outside. From the corner of his eye, Rick saw Maggie stop, then walk back toward them, but he wasn’t concerned about her right now.

Karin came to a panting halt beside him. “That man you were looking for? The one Tina was talking to? I saw him!”

He stiffened, the cold and Bursey both forgotten. “What? Where? He’s inside?”

She shook her head, then wrapped her arms around her body, shivering. “I’m not real sure, you know? But I’m pretty sure it’s him. I noticed him because he’s really good-looking? And then I noticed that he was watching you and Maggie and I thought, Wow! That’s him!”

Rick gritted his teeth against the urge to shake her. “Where is he now?”

Karin was almost dancing from cold and excitement. “He left. Right before you did. He walked right by you. I thought sure you’d see him!”

At the far side of the lot, a black Ford pickup pulled out of its space. The driver, invisible at this distance, pulled into the street without stopping and sped away.

Maggie was already running. Rick caught the beep of the electric door locks on her car.

“Come on!” she shouted. “My car’s closest!”

He barely managed to squeeze into the passenger seat and slam the door shut before she roared out of the parking lot after the pickup.

The pickup was three blocks away and moving fast.

The speed limit was thirty-five. Maggie was doing fifty by the time she’d reduced the gap to a block and a half. Ahead, the traffic light changed from green to amber.

Her grip on the wheel tightened as she scanned the intersection. She slowed just enough to confirm there were no cars coming, then roared on through as the light changed from amber to red.

Thank God it was the middle of the week and most people were home rather than out partying.

Maggie glanced in her rearview mirror—no cops in sight—then stepped on the gas. When there were only two cars remaining between them and the pickup, she slowed, then dodged behind a minivan.

Beside her, Rick Dornier strained forward, heedless of the seat belt cutting him in half. “You can catch him if you step on it.”

The whiplash urgency of his words told her all she needed to know about his fears for his sister’s safety. Fears he probably hadn’t admitted, even to himself.

“We want to follow him, not scare him off,” she said. But the next chance she got, she zoomed past the minivan, hoping their quarry wouldn’t notice.

Now there was only one car between them.

She easily made it through two more stoplights, but had to push it to slip through the third. And then there weren’t any lights at all for a while. Traffic was steady, but too light. The longer they were behind the pickup, the greater the chances its driver would spot them.

Worried, Maggie dropped back and let another car slide in front of her.

“That guy’s gotta know he’s being followed.” Rick words came out calm, controlled, but Maggie could hear the tension underlying them.

“Doesn’t matter,” Maggie lied. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him glance at her, his gaze sharp, assessing. If her wild driving bothered him, he hadn’t given any sign of it.

“What matters is we don’t lose him,” she amended, braking slightly to let another car slide in between her and the pickup, now three cars up.

“What matters is that I want to talk to him.” Rick’s gaze was still fixed on her, a fact that Maggie, who prided herself on her imperviousness, was finding oddly unsettling.

His eyes seemed to glow gold in the darkness of the car’s interior. Like a wolf’s, she thought, then forced her attention back to the road.

She knew the instant he looked away—it was as if he’d suddenly let go of the invisible cord on which he’d held her.

Ahead, the driver of the pickup slowed and abruptly turned left, without signaling. There wasn’t room to pass the car ahead before the turn, but the instant Maggie got the Subaru’s nose into the turn, the pickup was already at the next intersection and accelerating fast.

“You might want to step on it,” Rick suggested in a voice whose calmness couldn’t quite mask the dangerous tension beneath the surface. “If he didn’t know he was being followed before, he does now.”

Maggie shot him an annoyed glance and stepped on it.

“He’s turning! There! Down that alley.” Rick smacked the dashboard in frustration. “He’s spotted us, dammit!”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to ditch us.”

Maggie whipped the Subaru into the alley. The sturdy little car bucked as it hit a pothole, then another. The headlights carved a mad slash against the unlit blackness, highlighting a battered Dumpster, some abandoned crates and the faceless brick walls of the buildings on either side.

At the other end of the alley, the driver of the pickup shot across the next street and back into the unlit alley beyond. The driver of the car he’d almost rammed laid on the horn in protest. The angry wail grew louder as Maggie shot across the street, then faded again as she drove into the alley after the truck.

Beside her, Rick cursed as she hit another pothole and his head hit the roof.

They burst out of the alley and into a tire-squealing turn as the pickup turned left and roared the wrong way up the one-way street.